Global warming is an issue on which humankind has come to unanimous agreement with unprecedented speed. The Earth is warming, or else it's cooling, or else it's not doing either very fast. If left unchecked, this will lead to the destruction of civilization, probably, in a Biblical flood that will happen around 1995. Humans' prosperity and rich diets, breaking faith with Nature, and anything else you may feel guilty about, are the cause. Unless it's sunspots.

And all of the above is brought to you by one or more of the following:

Barack Obama, who was not content taking over GM and now wants your backyard Hibachi.

US right-wingers, talking up a threatening leftie crusade to help them raise money for a comeback in 2012.

Greedy businessmen who need a gimmick to sell you light bulbs that spatter mercury all over the nursery when they break.

In short, humankind is at loggerheads over both the facts, the culprits, and the proper course of action, with no resolution in sight, as on every other issue of the day. So things are pretty normal on the planet.

Contents

Main cause

A polar bear swimming happily in the ocean, exactly as he would be if global warming had melted the iceberg he was on just before.

The main cause of global warming is the well-known poisonous[1] gas carbon dioxide (molecular formula: C666O2).[2] There is more of it in the air than there used to be, we know that combustion, smokestacks, and buttholes emit it, and we know that flasks containing pure carbon dioxide get pretty fricking hot. Ergo, a human-caused apocalypse. (Human causation is irrefutably proven by the fact that all the other planets in our solar system are experiencing comparable climate changes.)

History

The loss of pirates is the real reason for global warming

“Global warming happens every year in the spring and continues through summer”

~ Gemma Freeman on endothermic processes

Scientists first observed global warming in 1895. Then in 1920 they said it was global cooling. Then in 1935 they said there was global warming, but then in 1975 they said it was the verge of a new Ice Age but then it became global warming again. But that is all old news. Let's stop talking about discredited work and move on to the real history.

Scientific consensus

One summer morning, scientists watching the expansion of mercury in a thermometer all realized: the Earth was getting hotter! If the trend continued unabated, spontaneous fires would start everywhere and entire forests, jungles, and cities would burn down. It was simple arithmetic.

Al Gore aims to save the environment with innovations such as the Green Car (4 MPG).

Their eyes met and they knew they were all thinking the same thing: A soft life through endless government research grants. Lifetime sinecures not just for cousins of legislators! This was the first case of scientific consensus. In fact, science previously had not been conducted through votes and consensus at all. These scientists reached an equally unprecedented conclusion that has echoed through legislative hearing rooms ever since: The science is settled!

The crisis that previously went entirely unnoticed now sparked urgent questions like "How do we stop this?" asked by young men anxious to never again have to grade freshman Physics exams. Billions were spent on scientific research, despite the absence of a "control" planet without humans to which to compare industrialized Earth.

The researchers all backed one man to unite people to fight the global crisis: Al Gore. He raised global awareness by traveling, with a huge entourage, to various locations in his private jet and large SUVs (which were kept running at all times, just in case) and making speeches. Gore won the first Nobel Peace Prize ever awarded merely for a really great sales job.[3]

Your carbon footprint

Essentially, every human contributes to the global crisis, unless he or she:

Specifically at fault are everyone with a computer (yes, YOU), SUVs with the peeing Calvin sticker, beans (the musical fruit), desert wildfires started by punk teens building bonfires, and people who aren't as trim and muscular as the average Californian at an anti-capitalist rally.

Everyone must manage his "carbon footprint." Fortunately, this exercise is less time-consuming than facing Mecca five times a day, requires less dexterity than avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk, and is less frustrating than struggling to balance the personal budget.

Wal-Mart plans to add labeling to guide consumers to the most carbon-friendly products on the shelf. Happily, these will cost no more than traditional products, and none will come from countries you had been boycotting over other moral issues such as their use of slave labor.

The carbon credit

It's our business; making you guilty, then we offer you our solution. Pay to swipe away your sins

Gore, later found to be a key cause of global warming, proposed that one person might live a harmful lifestyle in good conscience by paying someone else to adopt a less harmful lifestyle, much as a colonial American drafted to fight in the Civil War had paid the village fool $10 to take his place. The two people together would have the same carbon footprint as before. The adaptable Gore started one of the first markets in such "carbon credits." They let any high-consumption American absolve his guilt with a cash payment tothrough Gore. Various states began mandating the purchase of carbon credits. Coincidentally, Gore amassed a fortune rather impossible given the paltry pension of American Vice Presidents.

After some time thermometers began to show lower temperatures. This could only mean one thing: The Earth was getting colder again. Effects of global cooling, such as absence of the predicted effects of warming, needed to be explained as a counter-intuitive, indirect effect of all the warming. In the nick of time, scientists devised a better gimmick: Don't call it "global warming"--call it "global climate change"! The movement was saved, and Gore was in line for another Nobel for a second brainstorm any pitch-man would be proud of.

Global-warming "deniers"

Currently, most countries accept global warming as a threat to Our Way Of Life, and are working to actively solve the crisis. In contrast, Czech president Vaclav Klaus claims global warming is a giant octopus with unicorn breasts. He has created a carbon emissions program with the goal of doubling current carbon levels by 2030. This predictably angered Al Gore, who has called for Klaus' head to be char-broiled so Gore can save the world yet again by eating all that carbon.

Commentator Rush Limbaugh, whose head Gore does not want to eat, has quipped, "If all those mangy, rat-infested environmentalists just stopped breathing for half an hour, our carbon-dioxide problem would be over!"

The global-warming movement regards such individuals as "deniers," implicitly comparing them to Austrians who deny that the Holocaust occurred. Ergo, the only reason to take the other side is hatred of all Jews. Shine up a third Nobel!

While such "deniers" fight a solution to the problem, others such as the Chinese are facing the problem head-on by building more coal plants and feeding babies melamine-tainted milk.

International treaties

The atmosphere is pretty much transnational (despite progress on a very high wall between the United States and Mexico). So work on global warming needs to be international.

Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol was a 1998 agreement under which all Earth's nations would transform their economies to roll back their emission of CO2 by 2010. (Again, progress would be measured against that alternate Earth that has no humans.) All the nations, that is, except the following:

The United States, which never ratified the Protocol, and whose Senate was almost unanimously against any treaty if it had teeth.

Latin America and Africa, where existing laws aren't enforced and open fires are a fixture. Rural folk burn off crops after harvest rather than plowing them under; city-dwellers gather around open fires in 50-gallon drums, as an ice-breaker for early morning booze-ups before proceeding to the factories.

Crowded and grimy China and India, which were specifically exempted; and

The European Union, which eagerly ratified the Protocol but never complied with it.

The Protocol gave special status to "early ratifiers," the valiant nations that signed on before thinking it through. Bottom line: Nothing happened.

Follow-on treaty

A 2009 meeting in Copenhagen was to agree to a more stringent treaty on carbon emissions to replace the Kyoto Protocol. The parties' negotiating positions were as follows:

The United States under Barack Obama was newly receptive to a treaty, but insisted on getting credit for its vast forested area. It said these trees store carbon that otherwise would be discharged as CO2 into the atmosphere. But other nations pointed to the large number of Americans living together without marriage; the lack of diamond rings, which are also carbon, implied that the U.S. is responsible for additional CO2.

China and India insisted they are as crowded and grimy as ever and should still be exempt.

Third-world countries hardened their position. Rather than agreeing to terms they'll never enforce, they now wanted rich nations to pay them to agree. The checks would be payable to the various Presidents-for-Life, military strongmen, and tin-god dictators, to be spent on behalf of their needy populations. (The portion stored in numbered Swiss bank accounts backs their currencies.)

Recent developments

Hurricanes choked the Earth in 2005. Either that or they're pimples.

The active hurricane season of 2005 has been cited as confirmation of global warming. Scientists are still wrestling with the nagging fact that that high level of hurricane activity has not been seen since.

On the Ward Ice Shelf, a huge-ass piece of ice the size of the Netherlands broke off Antarctica. But this is not worrisome; it not only increased the surf but created a whole new island for resort condos.

Environmentalists have tallied the dollar cost of adapting to alleged imminent changes in the weather, agreeing that no one should have to pay for anything if they can say it wasn't their fault. The crowning achievement was to claim that global warming was about to put ski areas out of business, despite record snowfall.

In early 2009, computer models predicted that the recent reduction in glaciers was accelerating. Conferences discussed this evidence of increased urgency until aerial photos showed no such thing was happening in the non-computer-model world.

Climate-gate

The famous "hockey stick graph" shows the abrupt decline of global warming hysteria in the US press, around the time of the East Anglia shenanigans.

In November 2009, on the eve of the Copenhagen conference, it came out that Scientists at the University of East Anglia had engaged in a joint effort to protect the Science of global warming from politics; to-wit, the Freedom Of Information Acts of several countries. Stolen e-mails involved Michael Mann, the creator of the "hockey-stick graph." (A previous version, the "baseball-bat graph," which didn't show global temperatures flaring upward starting at the exact moment that Wal-Mart opened, was withdrawn, as was a less frightening illustration known as the "field-hockey-stick graph.")

Though they all still enjoyed Scientific consensus--that it was a "travesty" that none of their computer models had predicted the total lack of global warming over the previous decade--they discussed the corruption of one journal, now dominated by deniers. These noble seekers of the truth discussed boycotts of these tarnished journals, and what to do if it should come time to destroy evidence.

The reports of falsified Science using public funds came before the U.S. Congress--where, suddenly, the only scandal was: Who leaked those e-mails? Al Gore rescued the Scientists. Though still refusing to debate with heathens, he did put forth the following points:

That the most recent purloined e-mail was ten years old. He surely meant the least recent e-mail, an error any of us would have made.

That comparable science existed worldwide, and misbehavior was regrettable but not notable. (Even "adjusting" ocean levels by 2mm based on the turbulence measured in Hong Kong harbor.)

That the consensus was undamaged and that the conference should go forward, along with prosecution of the e-mail thieves. (He showed comparable outrage when Sarah Palin's e-mail was hacked and when the New York Times disclosed U.S. interception of terrorists' phone calls.)

Copenhagen

A lying U.S. politician might be laughable but wouldn't be notable. However, Al Gore's unique trait is to warn about global warming at conferences that are delayed or cancelled because of unforeseen cold snaps and freak snowstorms. The Copenhagen organizers knew this but invited the Inventor of the Internet nevertheless. A rare, late-fall, multi-day snowstorm was just the first thing to go wrong.

The parties dug into their negotiating positions (listed above). Barack Obama, the transcendental, multi-racial, problem-solving U.S. President had been scheduled to keynote the conference. Instead, he jetted to Oslo to pick up his Nobel Prize, back to the U.S. for a TV interview, and back to Copenhagen on the last day of the conference to sign a shiny new treaty with which the signers would agree to cripple themselves. Obama (by all accounts different from Bush), promised to smooth over differences between the parties with a big new dollop of cash from U.S. taxpayers (whom he had just told that the U.S. would go broke if his health-care bill didn't pass).

Obama's gambit had about the same degree of success as his previous visit to Copenhagen, to secure the 2014 Olympics for Chicago. China, India, and Brazil walked out, leaving Obama as the first U.S. President to be unable even to walk into a global shakedown.

A breakthrough!

But that boycott was just a little transitory pouting as "developing" nations held out for more loot. Obama got them back in the room and "an agreement was reached," though a non-binding, non-verbal, after-hours agreement between a half dozen nations whose only effect is to arm Obama to tell the Congress he made a promise to shovel cash to sub-Saharan Africa and it has to pony up. Earth is saved! Who says great things don't happen at the hotel bar?

Contra-indications

Even though, by 2010, global warming appeared to be a total hoax, certain things were happening to suggest that it might indeed be a fact:

Michael Fish, the BBC weatherman who notoriously dismissed rumors of a hurricane in 1987 on the day that a freak storm did hit England and killed 18, has stated in his new, weekly forecast for Netweather.tv that "I predict there will be no global warming."

The Minneapolis Lakers of the NBA, so-named because their arena was in the middle of a region of lakes, suddenly found that their home court was in an arid desert.

Remedies

Global warming alarmists ignore that a mortal threat to ski areas will create unlimited opportunities for water skiing.

Nuclear winter

As popularized by science writer and astronomer Carl Sagan, Nuclear Winter is a beneficial cooling effect of billions and billions of tons of dust and debris kicked up by billions and billions of bombs in total global thermonuclear war. It was discovered by observing the dust storms on Mars, on the way to the local wormhole, as demonstrated in the documentary Contact. There is a tricky balance between nuclear winter and global warming, but as Russian and North Korean nukes are freely available on the black market, any group dissatisfied with the earth's temperature can dial it down a notch or two.

The existence threat

Breathing, much like eating and drinking, has been shown to increase CO2 emissions. Most experts agree that being taxed for the air we breathe is a legitimate way to reduce global warming. Engineers have devised a coin-operated valve that could be attached to bodily orifices.

Existing is commonly cited as the most influential cause of global warming. Fortunately, eco-friendly groups such as Al Qaeda help cut down on existing. Existence is predicted to reach an all-time low by 2012.

The oxygen threat

In contrast with the main push to reduce emissions of carbon, a move is growing to address the other component of carbon dioxide, oxygen. After all, if there were no oxygen, the human race wouldn't exist, and obviously human-caused global warming would not be happening.

Scientists have thus proposed to decrease the oxygen levels in the earth's atmosphere to the point when humans can no longer live. This has been endorsed by the U.N., but their resolution may have been mistaken in translation and been a result of delegates simply saying, "I'm going outside for some fresh air".

If the extinction of the human race cannot be achieved, we can at least hire millions of new scientists with no distractions from taking measurements and inventing theories, paid for by taxes, but only on the rich or on those the scientists say are the cause of the problem; and sign new treaties under which global bureaucrats can veto any new business deal anywhere.

International activism

While the E.U., Britain, Mexico, and Papua New Guinea have raised gas taxes to reduce demand and emissions, the most ambitious plan has been advanced by Russia, which has vowed to bomb back to the Stone Age neighboring countries not using Russian pipelines. Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi praised this plan: "A Stone-Age Eastern Bloc would have a dramatically smaller carbon footprint, and the Russians are setting a good example with their use of carbon-neutral bombs....Now, where the hell is my Hummer?”

Things you can do

Another Uncyclopedia democratization section

This section exists as a creative outlet for the anonymous passers-by who can't write anything longer than one sentence, and can't be bothered to make even that relate to nearby material or check whether it restates a point made earlier. Have at it!

North Koreans have done their part and reduced their carbon footprint, as seen here.

New studies have found helpful things you can do to tackle global warming:

Desert residents, turn on your A/C units with the doors open.

Spray one can of aerosol spray into the air everyday. Make sure it's NOT CFC free!

Don't use regular weed killer, use DDT.

Have a tyre fire blazing at all times on your property.

Heat your house with electric heaters. There is no pollution, is there?

Buy an SUV, and never turn the engine off. Trips taken when the engine is hot take less fuel than if the engine is cold.

Desert civilization and start living off the land again. (This means no computers, okay?)

Vote for the left-wing political party, since global warming never seems to make Page One when they are in power.

Take off your shoes. You may not leave a carbon footprint at all, and if you do, it will surely be smaller.

When you are walking make grand flying motions with your arms to cool down the air around you

Tell any Africans you meet, "Don't do as I do, do as I tell you to!"

Cover the entire earth with huge fans, to blow the hot air away.

Burn hipsters. They do everything before it's cool.

None of these things are guaranteed to slow down or stop further global warming. Scientists can be wrong. Who gets tomorrow's weather forecast wrong most of the time?!

Activists

Knights of the Order of Global Warming

Two Knights of the Order of Global Warming before battle.

The debate over global warming has spawned a new breed of fanatics. Led by Grand Wizard Al Gore and based on the Knights Templar, the KOGW have become increasingly violent in their attempts to quell further debate.

From its inception, the KOGW has been hostile to dissenting points of view. The doctrine boiled into open combat on May 22, 1997, when a company of KGOW engaged, defeated and then massacred large force of Deniers at the Battle of Waterloo. With more and more followers flocking to its standard, the KGOW expanded its operations and forced the surrender of Brussels.

No list of global-warming activists would be complete without mentioning the entire set of Wikipedia editors.

Other Theories

It's all Obama's fault

Some leaders counsel against fighting global warming because Barack Obama is President anyway, and the world will soon be destroyed in socialist Armageddon. Anyone can see that the world is mucked-up and the climate is different from how I remember it being when I was a kid. The only possible explanation is Obama! Unless my Chevy Truck ended the last two ice ages...oh, whoops, there were no automobiles back then, and nations hadn't industrialized yet. Evil polluters from the future must have gone back into the past and driven cars around and set up factories with smoke stacks, waited until the ice ages melted, and disassembled the factories and gone back to the future.

Large emissions solve large emissions

How New York could follow the example of Venice

We have cars everywhere zooming around and spewing out gas. So we need to find a way to get rid of the cars. What immediately comes to mind is Venice, Italy. They NEVER use cars. Ever. And why don’t they use cars? Water. Lots and lots of water everywhere you look. So we need to follow their example and fill our streets with water.

Where could we get such large volumes of water? Sea voyagers and explorers have discovered, on both poles of the earth, large quantities of frozen water. It's just sitting there and not being put to use. So, we need to find a way to melt them.

The perfect way is to burn as much fossil fuel as possible, so as to increase the temperature of the globe. This will raise the height of the ocean, and, consequently, fill the streets of coastal cities worldwide, with liberating, problem-solving, 100% natural water. Once the streets are filled with water, they’ll be just like Venice; no carbon emissions. They can get around in boats. And there, the problem is solved. No more global warming!

So, certainly you have noticed the sudden changes in weather patterns as of late. If you have not, you will certainly have been told by people who are much cleverer. They are not caused by lax pollution regulations, Chinese, or Gypsies, but by...CHRIST. Jesus was hanging out with fellow savior Barack Obama and toking on a doobee when he noticed that the thermostat was a little low. Apparently, after the ice age, it hadn't been turned all the way up. So, oblivious to the fact that humans had gotten used to not dying from heat stroke, Jesus turned up the heat.

In a recent interview, Jesus quipped, "If I can just borrow a phrase from a close friend of mine: If you can't take the heat, get the fuck out of hell." Reportedly, God added, "I never really liked humanity anyway."[4]

Daylight savings time theory

Global warming is the government's fault for adding an extra hour on to the day during daylight savings time. This means an extra hour of sunlight every day for six months a year. The extra sunlight added by the government causes the planet to heat up and destroy the environment. The earth will eventually burn if this continues.

Animals in the atmosphere

Some say that the reason for Global Warming is the sudden height in "raining cats and dogs." These animals fight one another up in the air, creating heat energy. This energy then forms over the polar bears and releases. After the energy is released, the polar bears "take off their coats" and disguise themselves as penguins so that we don't realize their smart plots to take over the World. Our Earth is slowly being conquered by these disguised polar bears and we blame it on the poor penguins! This is one of the many commonly unknown consequences of Global Warming. To save our planet from the (fake) penguins, we must shoot down these cats and dogs before it's too late!

Gnomal warming

Supporters of Universal Gnome Theory have a separate theory. Gnome Theory states that all forms of energy are just the actions of gnomes. Heat is simply gnomes rubbing each other and kinetic energy is gnomes moving about. The current "gnomal warming" is traced to a recent discovery by the Earth gnomes of a large supply of festive sweaters. These sweaters (comprising hyper-gnomes) are so festive that no self-respecting gnome would give his up. These festive sweaters have caused gnomes to host parties where they feel each other's sweaters to determine whose is the best. All the gnomes running from party to party and rubbing each other's sweaters has caused the recent rise in global temperatures. As the gnomes refine their taste in sweaters, they produce ever more vibrant and festive patterns and color combinations, and the parties become more frequent and rowdy.

This gnomal warming will continue until the gnomes tire of their sweaters (which should not occur for many centuries) or until other gnomes become jealous of Earth gnomes' sweaters and come to steal them. (Gnomes are rather jealous.) To counter gnomal warming, humans must send vibrantly clad gnomes to other stars and planets. If we can get the attention of other gnomes, our plight may be short lived and our gnomes may revert to their unsweatered ways.

Other global warmings

The video game

Oh no!!!Evil earth-killers driving their tanks of doom!!1!

Inspired by the public indifference to global warming, Electronic Arts has created Global Warming: the Video Game. In the game, you play the part of the leader of a country, building as many coal power plants and gas-guzzling cars as possible and doing everything you can to suppress and discredit scientists who say global warming exists. After the release of Global Warming: the Video Game, EA Games released two more climate-themed games, one based on Global Cooling and the other based on Global Boring.

The cuisine

The global warming theory is not to be confused with the latest new food craze by the same name. This hot dish has been around for years but is now enjoying a resurgence in popularity. As a result of its strong association with gas accumulation, it is best enjoyed by heartily patting one's dinner guests on the back.

References

↑Mere ounces, administered intravenously, were a Lethal Dose in 50% of the subjects.